What a journey it has been to get my work ready for this show. I’m going to write about it, if you don’t mind. I met Mark, Alex, and Geoff from the Mounted team for the first time when I brought the work in. They are among the most gracious unpretentious people I have ever met. From their website,

“Luft will draw together visual artists, writers and musicians to create work in direct response to an original music composition. 

World renowned Music Producer and Engineer, Peter Cobbin, has composed a piece of music for this creative arts project and participating creatives will use this musical composition as a stimulus to make work.”

Firstly, this idea of combining disciplines is very appealing to me because I have been a musician for most of my life, way longer than the art thing, and also because I love the idea of eclectic multi-disciplinary exhibitions linked by theme (although they might be a curator’s nightmare!). Communicating ideas is what artists do, so the more disciplines the more creative ideas in my opinion.

Secondly, I haven’t been involved with an Artist Run Initiative before. An ARI is a system of bringing art to the audience, run by artists for artists. In contrast, a commercial gallery’s bottom line is making money. No hate to that, but it kind of insta-curates out a lot of less commercially marketable art that might be deeply conceptual, experimental, process-driven, and less aesthetically focused. The third gallery system I know of is government galleries (local, state, or federal). These have a gate-keeping function and control which cultural products (the Art) society deems valuable. Works exhibited in the AGNSW for example, don’t display price tags and are not for sale. They are part of the collection of the gallery, or they are on loan from the owner. Maybe a philanthropist purchases them for the institution. These are the Picassos, Monets, Da Vincis, Nicholas Hardings, and the Grace Cossington-Smiths. For this project, I felt safe to experiment with ideas and mediums without the pressure of needing to appeal to a target audience or stand up to high level critical scrutiny.

Now, for Luft, I felt the music reminded me of the intricacy of spiders weaving their web and I put together these words for my artist statement:

“The music of Luft teaches me life-lessons from the simple life of an orb weaver spider. They live in the air, spinning a web methodically, rhythmically. They must then hold fast as the wind and weather buffet, swaying the tiny creature. Yet in this repetition of irregular motion, we see resilience despite fragility.

The arpeggios sound to me like a spider plucking their own harp or stringed instrument. The high octave notes indicate a spider walking with all those legs moving faster and faster to urgently repair a breach in the structure. 

To me, Luft speaks of anticipation and hope, the theme of a spider’s existence. Mindfulness and feeling emotion while listening, absolutely, but with the idea that your life will be slightly changed by the experience. When I encounter a spider, I am not repulsed or horrified, instead I admire their single-minded determination to exist and prevail. They stake their miniscule claim in the world with eight gentle feet.”

My goal – 9 small works of scenes throughout a spider’s life, shown over the course of one day – sunrise to sunset.

My process – I thought these would be squares. I couldn’t find square frames for a viable price. I collected various rectangular wooden trays and boxes from Marketplace and Op Shops so I could get some depth for the web, tree, and spider elements shadow box style. I measured up and painted all the different sized backgrounds. These looked too mismatched and drew attention away from the spider story. Then I worried about how to construct spider webs that would maintain tension. I tried crochet which worked but was not delicate. I researched lace making and tried to remain calm. I settled on crochet thread, pinned on a cork board and glued with PVA at each intersection. The stabbing was enjoyable. I could only do one per day. After the first one, I realised that I needed the circular frame of the embroidery hoop to maintain that tension evenly, and the works needed to be round. I repainted the backgrounds. Etc….